Active silence with the Word opens one to conversion, says Peruvian founder

Vatican City, Oct 15, 2008 / 10:55 pm (CNA).- During the Synod of Bishops on Tuesday, the Peruvian founder of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, Luis Fernando Figari Rodrigo, said “active silence,” which makes us open to reverent attentiveness to the Word of God, is the path towards a personal and sanctifying encounter with the Lord.

During the session in which various founders and general superiors addressed the bishops, Luis Fernando Figari recalled how “Pope Paul VI emphasized the communicative dimension of divine revelation in Ecclesiam Suam,” something that is expressed “in that beautiful passage of Exodus in which we are told that ‘God spoke with Moses face to face, as with a friend’.”

“With the arrival of the fullness of time, God pronounced his Word, who is in God from the beginning and who is God, and He was born of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit,” the Peruvian founder said.

“The Eternal Word incarnate speaks in human language and manifests the mystery of God and his Plan, as well as the mystery of the human being, the grandeur of his vocation and the horizon of his personal fulfillment,” he added.

“The Word of God written through the inspiration of the Spirit,” he continued, “questions the deepest part of the human being and invites him to the passionate and indescribable encounter with the Lord Jesus.”

Therefore, “the mastery of active silence that implies not only attentiveness but also doing so in the Ecclesia (Church), opening the heart to the interiorizing and adhering to the Word of God.”

“In listening and receiving the Word, it nourishes the faith in our minds, transforming our way of thinking until we have ‘the mind of Christ;’ it awakens the faith in our hearts until we have ‘among us the very sentiments that Jesus Christ had’; and it drives us to put our faith in action, conscious that those who ‘hear the word and put it into practice’ are blessed,” Figari said. “The Virgin Mary is the model of listening and responding to the Word of God,” he said in conclusion.